Exemplary embodiments relate generally to communications, and more particularly, to remote monitoring of IP devices having changing IP addresses.
Since the Internet has become an essential part of daily business, connectivity monitoring is performed of devices (such as, Netgate devices or Cisco routers) using dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) IP addresses provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Some customers may utilize virtual private networks (VPN) such as AT&T VPN Tunnel Services (AVTS) and AT&T NB IP-VPN Remote Access (ANIRA) Service, and the remote customers at small office/home office (SOHO) locations may often use Netgate devices or Cisco routers to access corporate VPN networks for emails, client/server applications, Intranet applications, WWW access, etc. The connection is usually provided by AT&T or other service providers via dial up, xDSL, cable modem, and ISDN types of internet connection connections.
For some customers, e.g., a major local branch office, the customers always want the connection to be up, except maybe occasional disconnect/connect bounce of the connections by ISPs to re-claim IP addresses and assign new ones. However, if the connection is down for more than a certain time, this down time may impact the customer's business operation. Thus, the customer wants the ISP to proactively monitor the connection failure, notify them of any problem, troubleshoot the problems, and recover the service.
It has been a challenge to monitor these remote location devices, i.e., routers, modems, etc., since the IP connection monitoring application has to know the IP address of the remote device in order to perform pinging or polling of the device while its IP addresses change from time to time as the ISPs bounce the connections from time to time to re-claim existing IP addresses and assign new IP addresses.